BoB shares slide by 2.9 pc after reports of under-reported bad loans

Shares of government-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) fell by 2.93 per cent on Wednesday morning after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) found that it had under-reported bad loans by Rs 5,250 crore in the financial year 2018-19.

According to recent guidelines by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), banks are required to disclose divergence in the asset classification and provisioning immediately upon receipt of RBI's final risk assessment report.

BoB had reported a net loss of Rs 8,339 crore in the year ended March. The adjusted (notional) net loss after taking into account the divergence in provisioning was at Rs 10,998 crore.

The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) assessed by RBI were at Rs 75,174 crore as compared to Rs 69,924 crore reported by the bank, BoB informed stock exchanges in regulatory filings.

The bank had reported Rs 23,795 crore net NPAs during the year while the RBI assessed it at Rs 29,045 crore, leaving a gap of Rs 5,250 crore. The divergence in provisioning also increased by Rs 4,090 crore.

At noon, BoB was trading at Rs 99.25 per share, down by 2.93 per cent.

BoB is a public sector bank with 46 branches in 14 countries. The government holds 69.23 per cent stake in it.